The Life of a Job Seeker: Episode 18
Episode 18: The Dangerous Lies
It’s only been 5 months since Kobi started his new joband one could tell the significant improvement in his life. His look was fresher as he enjoyed better meals, and wore very nice clothing. His family were happy with him as he was now able to send them tangible allowance on monthly basis. One could tell that his new job gave him great satisfaction.
Faruq, on the other hand became envious of Kobi’s new life and was desperate to get a job too. After applying for a number of jobs and getting no, or negative feedbacks stating that he didn’t fit the requirement for the roles, he became tempted to lie about his skills and experience on his resume while applying for a job in a media house.
The Lies
Shebi, its 3 Years of experience in my field of study and good knowledge in video editing that you want; I will give it to you, he said as he crafted a false Resume. He made up a company name, job responsibilities, and accomplishment and sent his application.
Surprisingly, he was invited for an interview. Within the short notice of his interview, he prepared very hard for the likely questions he might face. Fortunately for him, the interview wasn’t too challenging. It was all theoretical. Yet, as simple as it appeared, he responded to over 50% of the interview questions with impressive lies and was fortunate to land the job. He was offered a pay package that even surpassed Kobi’s.
His friends congratulated him on his achievement but rather than being excited about resuming work, he was worried. He told his friends the truth about the tricked he played on the company and his concerns about being caught on the job and losing it. They were surprised by his guts and advised him to quickly learn the required skills before resumption. However, he had very limited time before resumption and couldn’t learn much.
The Implications
Just as with any other lies, his so-called small resume lie grew into big ones; as lying on your resume means that you will most likely have to keep lying even long after you’ve been hired. Upon resumption, he lied more about job experiences he never had during discussions with his team, and soon they started suspecting him as he shared contradictory information out of forgetfulness.
His fear finally came to pass when he was asked to edit a media file; an aspect which he claimed to be very good at during his interview, but he couldn’t deliver on the job. He failed in more assignments, and one by one, his lies became apparent to the company and his colleagues and within 3 weeks, he was fired.
Lesson 12: Never Lie on Your Resume
When you are on the search for a job and you come upon a job you love, it can be frustrating to discover that there are some requirements for the job that you do not meet. It can be tempting under those circumstances to forge a little on your resume to meet the required standard.
However, the short term gains you might make in landing the job through deception can have long term ramifications that can be detrimental to your career. Even a little lie on your resume is not a good idea. If you said you had certain skills or experiences on your resume, you can be sure your employer will expect you to demonstrate those abilities on the job.
If you can’t really do what you said you could on your resume, soon it will become apparent to your employer and you can be fired; and because of the reason for your termination, you likely won’t be able to use anyone at the company as a reference. In addition, you will not only have to explain in future interviews that you were fired but also the reason why. While you could delete the company from your work history, if you’ve been there a long time, you’ll have a gap in your resume that may not be easy to explain.
So, rather than lying on your Resume about your skill set to land a job, you can bridge the gap by acquiring employability skills to enhance your employability.
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